The Major's Complaint

Author: Geonn

Email: neil_j_miser@yahoo.com

Rating: R

Pairings: Sam/Janet

Category: Angst

Series: Third in the Complaint Department Series

Website: www.realmoftheshadow.com/geonn.htm

Disclaimer: These folks don't belong to me. I stole them from MGM's toybox without asking their mommies for permission. I promise to return them more or less unscathed.

Spoilers: "Out of Mind," "Upgrades," "Divide & Conquer," "Entity," "Beneath The Surface,"

Archive: Yes, just let me know where it'll be.

Notes: Apologies to Lynne Knowlton. Hope you can overlook my grammatical errors in this one :-D And this one is dedicated to Deborah Yarko. Happy Anniversary!

Summary: Sam thinks about the people who love her.

"When dealing with people, remember that you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice, and motivated by pride and vanity." Dale Carnegie

Special Thanks to Hl for the banner.


"Your momma wears combat boots."

That had been such an insult when I was a kid. Now, sitting in the locker room in my black t-shirt and green fatigue pants... I couldn't help but notice the rounded toes of my boots. Better to contemplate footwear than what O'Neill had said.

When I was a girl, I used to wear sneakers. All the other girls had Mary Janes and little girlie slippers with bows and ribbons that were pink and white. I had Nikes. Blue and white and yellow Nikes that helped me kick the ass of every boy on the court. I wore high heels when necessary, of course, like to the prom or special events, things like that. Years later, sitting on a bench in the middle of the SGC locker room, I stared down at my boots and realized that I was still the same tomboy I had been growing up. All the easier to just be 'one of the guys.'

I ran my hands through my hair, which was just barely touching my neck. Janet loved it when my hair got a little long; it gave her something to play with, she said. I smiled at the thought of playing with her. I loved Janet with every fiber of my being. She was my soul mate, my dream, my fantasy, my lover. And she felt the same way for me. How often did that happen in life? I shuddered and turned on the bench, fishing my cell phone from my locker.

I had a few minutes until it officially became the men's lockers, so I decided to place a call. The number was memorized and I punched it quickly, pressing the phone to my ear and looking up at the clock. 6:30. Janet was most likely just starting to watch "Hollywood Squares." I chewed my lip and she answered on the third ring.

"Hello," she said, sounding distracted.

"Hi," I said.

Her voice immediately softened and the background noise of the TV fell silent. "Sam, hey! Where are you?"

"Still at the base. I just had my post-mission done and we have to do the briefing in about ten minutes. I should be home in an hour... is that okay?"

There was a pause and then, "Um... yeah. Uh-huh, sure. Sam? Are-- is everything okay?"

Could she tell from my voice? "Yeah. 'Course it is. Why wouldn't it be?" The door opened and Colonel O'Neill stepped in, immediately wincing and checking the arrow on the locker room door. I stood, waving at him that I was done. To Janet, I said, "Listen, ah, I gotta go. Talk to you later, sweetheart. Love." I snapped the phone shut and smiled at him. "Cassie," I explained.

"How is she?"

I shrugged. "Good. See you at the briefing?"

He nodded and went to his locker. I moved past him, noticing that he stiffened as our arms brushed. Smooth move, Carter... I scurried out of the lockers and headed for the elevator, ready for this damn day to be over with.

---

I pulled up in front of his house, staring at his truck parked in the driveway. The lights were on inside, so I knew I wouldn't be disturbing him, but... for some reason, I just sat behind the wheel for a moment. I had taken the car as a favor to Janet, who despised the motorcycle I had spent so many paychecks on. All those years of pain and sweat and money thrown at replacement parts and all the hours polishing everything to a fine gleam. And it was parked in the garage because Janet didn't like me riding it. The odd thing was how easy the decision had been. "You don't want me to ride it much? Okay, no problem." All my father had been able to do was get me to wear a helmet.

Sitting in the car wasn't going to accomplish anything. I pulled the keys from the ignition and walked to the porch, watching as a shadow passed in front of a window in the kitchen. Home, awake, moving around. Definitely wouldn't be disturbing him... so ring the doorbell. Ask him if his little 'hypothetical' situation involved real people. I wouldn't be able to sleep wondering if he knew about me and Janet. I had barely been able to concentrate on dinner.

Dinner. Janet had made Wild Rice and Mushroom Hamburger Helper. She hated the mix, but she made it just for me. She knew how much I loved it and the burn that left my tongue numb for the rest of the night.

Instead of ringing the doorbell, I turned and sat on his front step, clasping my hands between my knees and looked up at the stars. The Colonel had a telescope on his roof; something I had discovered early on in our friendship. It was a beautiful night for stargazing. As I stared up, I knew I should've taken the time to plan this conversation. O'Neill was more than just a friend or a CO. There were... complicated emotions there.

He loved me. Or, rather, he 'cared for me a lot more than he was supposed to.' But the Colonel is like that. Daniel, Teal'c and I are like his extended family. Teal'c and Janet had both witnessed his confession and I spent a lot of time convincing them that his feelings weren't mutual. I wanted to convince Janet because I didn't want her to doubt how I felt for a second. I wanted to convince Teal'c because I didn't want him to be under the impression that Colonel O'Neill and I were anything other than CO and 2IC. I wanted to be sure that our off-world lives would remain that same. Janet took a bit more convincing than Teal'c, although... I admit I had a lot more fun convincing her than I did Teal'c. But the point was it shouldn't have meant as much as it did.

Sure, the Colonel came back for me. He refused to leave me there to die. Big deal. Just because it was me, he risked his life? Had it been Daniel or Teal'c or General Hammond trapped behind that force field, he would have left? I seriously doubt that. The fact that I'm a woman and he's a man caused a lot of eyebrows to be lifted. Unfortunately... his feelings were sincere. He did love me. And that was the problem.

I only wish that had been the lone example of how he felt. I remember Janet telling me about the Entity taking over me, sending my consciousness into the base computer to save my life. I remember how angry she was telling me that she had been forced to share her grief with O'Neill. How she felt cheated because she wouldn't be able to mourn me the way she wanted if the worst *did* happen. I rewrote my will for her, making the decision to end my life hers and hers alone. It was a decision I should've made in the beginning.

My watch told me that time was moving on, but the night seemed so still I didn't believe it. Inside the house, the Colonel was probably going about his night - watching TV, doing laundry, eating dinner - without any idea that I was sitting on his porch thinking about... everything. Him. Me. Janet. All of us.

There was something I had never told Janet. A secret that ashamed me and made me wonder if I truly loved her as much as I thought I did. I closed my eyes as I thought of it on O'Neill's porch, touching my hands to my forehead. When Hathor had captured us and led us to believe we had been frozen for eighty years, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Tears wouldn't come when I tried to weep for my lost love, but they wouldn't come... I simply laid there, nude and shivering, as I tried to accept the fact that I would never see Janet again.

The first face I saw from my past was Colonel O'Neill. He managed to sneak up on the guard watching me and knock him out, waking me from an induced slumber. I'll never forgive myself for what I thought when I saw him standing over me. I didn't think 'It was all a lie, Janet's alive' or 'The Colonel is here, he'll find a way for us to get home.' I... There was no real thought going through my head. It somehow eased my mind thinking he was in the same boat I was in. My first thought had been that at least I would have Colonel O'Neill.

There's no argument that I have *some* feelings for Colonel O'Neill. Try as I might, I can never deny that in a court of law (or, apparently, under the watchful eye of the za'tarc detector). That fact had been all-too-clearly illustrated in Administrator Calder's work camp. All of my memories of my past life - Janet and Cassandra included - had been eliminated. Working side-by-side with Colonel O'Neill - or, as I knew him, Jonah - I had started to form a bond with him. Hell, I had almost slept with him.

I finger-combed my hair and stood. No good can come from him knowing about me and Janet. There's no way I can make this work. If he knows, he knows. If he doesn't... well, that's all the better. No sense in complicating it for everyone else.

I was about to step off the porch when I heard a soft 'ah-ham.' I turned and saw Colonel O'Neill standing in the doorway, thumping the tab of a cold beer can. I couldn't speak... He tossed me the beer can and I clumsily caught it, turning it upright as he asked, "Been waiting long?"

"Sir." I tossed the can back. "I-I can't stay. I just wanted to... talk about something."

The moment of truth. Now or never.

---

I closed the door quietly, turning the lock and heading upstairs. The trip had been a success... sort of. I knew the Colonel O'Neill indeed know that Janet and I were lovers. I also knew he didn't plan to do anything about it. He hadn't told me how he found out, but I had a pretty good idea. The fishing trip. Janet had introduced Cassandra to the sport of fishing and our daughter was curious about it (as she was about most things). So, the guys decided to take a little trip to a nearby lake and introduce her to the finer points of fishing.

Janet had given me The Look that I knew all too well as they were packing things up to go. I made an excuse - something about watching a movie - and the guys had gone off to the lake. Janet was on me the second they were out the door. We had just gotten back from a long mission and I had been too tired to do anything the night before. My lover was ready and a nuclear missile wouldn't have stopped her.

Looking back on that day, I could've sworn I heard someone in the house while we were making love. Janet had dismissed it and, since nothing but a case of A&W she bought for the guys seemed to be missing, I wrote it off. I was almost certain that it had been the Colonel and I had little doubt as to what he had seen...

It was eleven-twenty. As I reached the top of the stairs, I glanced at the crack under Cassandra's bedroom door. The light was off, but the blue glow of her computer monitor was visible under the door. I knocked lightly and said, "Eleven thirty, kiddo. Lights out." I didn't wait to make sure she went to bed; if she was tired when we dragged her to school tomorrow, tough. I went into the bedroom, kicking off my shoes and sighing as my socks met the cool air of the room. "Nice," I whispered, wiggling my toes in the plush carpet. Janet wasn't in bed, which left only one place: her favorite thinking spot. The bathtub.

When I glanced into the bathroom, I was momentarily stumped. The tub was full of a bubble bath and the water was rocking slightly, but there was no sign of Janet beyond the towel laid out on the floor. I was about to leave when my lover surfaced, her lips parting in a gasp as her hands brushed water out of her face. I couldn't hold back a startled yelp when I saw her, my hand going to my mouth. She turned to look at me, apparently as surprised by my sudden appearance as I had been by hers. "Damn!" I hissed, trying not to sound too frightened. "Scared the... you scared me! What were you doing underwater?"

"Thinking," she said. "How was O'Neill?"

I looked at my reflection in the mirror. No wonder she needed her thinking place. All night I had been halfway ignoring her, worrying about what I would do about the Colonel's scenario. She had always complained of having to share my heart with the Colonel and tonight must've seemed like the final nail in the coffin. I smiled at myself and said, "He's
okay."

There was a pause. I was about to tell her how sorry I was when she softly informed me, "There's room enough for two in this tub..."

I had never bathed with any of my other lovers. It seemed far too intimate; something you did when you were absolutely at ease with someone and didn't care when or how they saw you. It was a point I had never reached with a partner... until now. I pulled my shirt out of my pants and yanked it over my head, disrobing completely and carrying the ball of dirty clothes to the hamper. When I slipped my foot into the tub, I saw a glint in Janet's eye that I had never seen before. She smiled as I sat down and leaned against me, our bodies molded together perfectly under the bubbles.

I embraced her, holding her tight and whispering, "What were you thinking about?"

"This. You and me. How much I love you. What I would do if you ever left me."

"Leave you?" I asked.

So she *had* been worried about me and Colonel O'Neill. I knew it would do no good to assure her that I was hers forever. Words were pointless; I had told Jonas Hansen that I would never leave him. I had sworn up and down that there would be no one else. I had told him I loved him and has accepted his ring. Words... Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that 'what you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say.' So I picked up the washcloth that was resting on Janet's beautiful thigh and swept it across her breast, watching a trail of goosebumps trail the water. "I would never leave you," I promised her. Words *were* pointless... but sometimes they still felt good to hear.

"Will you tell me something, then? What was wrong with you tonight? Why did you have to run over to Colonel O'Neill's?"

She couldn't have missed the tension that shot through me. I lifted my legs, my knees rising from the water like twin submarines surfacing. When I didn't answer immediately, she continued. "Did you... does it have to do with your feelings for him?"

I tried to laugh it off. I did have feelings for him, but... "No, honey. I love him like... he's my older brother. Or my father. Or a favorite uncle. There's only one person I love with every bit of my heart... and she's sitting in front of me in the buff."

She wasn't fooled. I could tell by the way she smiled as if she were admitting defeat. "So what did you have to talk to him about? What was bugging you earlier?"

The moment of truth... two in one night, possibly some kind of record. I had no idea how to approach this subject with her. On the one hand, she didn't have to know because I doubted it would ever come up. If she didn't know he knew, then the whole thing would soon be forgotten. If she didn't mention it, he wouldn't mention it.

On the other hand, she would be better off knowing because she wouldn't have to keep up the act around him any longer. No more 'doctor-just-concerned-for-the-patient' routine. The next time I was shot or hurt in the line of duty, she
wouldn't have to suck it up and pretend I'm just another patient in her care. She would be able to mourn the way she wanted, if only with one other person. That sealed the deal for me.

"Are you sure you wanna know?" I asked, knowing I would tell her no matter what. She put such an emphasis on honesty in our relationship that I--

"Tell me," she interrupted.

"He knows about you... and me... and... us."

"He WHAT?!"

Janet sat forward, bending her knees and facing me in the tub. I forced myself not to look at her bare, wet breasts and held up my hands. "He... won't do anything. He's okay with it, as far as the military stuff goes. He won't turn us in. We're safe..."

She sighed, then looked me in the eye. "What do you mean... 'as far as military stuff goes'?"

What did I mean? She couldn't deny the... I shook my head. "He... has feelings for me, Janet."

"I know."

I brushed her stomach with the cloth, loving the way her muscles tensed and relaxed under my caress. "I think it'll just take him some time to get used to the fact that I'm not waiting for him. Acceptance takes time."

She turned her back to me again and leaned against my chest. I accepted her weight and pressed my face into her wet hair.

"So... you just went to make sure we wouldn't get found out?" I nodded. "I was worried," she whispered, threading her fingers with mine. "I thought... maybe you had reconsidered how you felt about him."

I kissed the outer shell of her ear and tightened my grip on her. "Janet... I'm yours. Forever and ever. Don't forget that." There. I had said it. What didn't need to be said was that, if it were legal, I would have asked her to be my wife dozens of times over. That sometimes I wept in the night because I dreamt she had left me. I didn't tell her that every now and then, I would sit back in my chair - wherever I might be - and wonder how I managed to get someone so wonderful. She didn't need to know all of that. I dipped my tongue into her ear and playfully asked, "Can I play with your ducky?"

Janet laughed. "Is that code or do you really want the rubber ducky out of the cupboard?"

Turning her head so that I could kiss her lips, I moved my hands from her stomach to the patch of brown hair between her legs. I massaged her between her legs and felt her thighs move apart. She broke the kiss and smiled up at me, her eyes glassy. "I would love for you to play with my ducky," she chuckled.

I stood first, helping her out of the tub and taking the towel. I massaged her shoulders and back, taking my time to dry her breasts, stomach and thighs. I kissed her belly button as I knelt in front of her and her hands moved to my head. "Bedroom," she whispered hoarsely, her hands cupping my ears. I stood and she dried me off as well, moving one wrinkled finger between my lower lips and making me hiss.

We went to the bedroom, climbing under the sheets before falling into each other once more. I felt her leg move between mine and I accepted it, biting her bottom lip as I felt her thigh press against my core. She swept her tongue over mine and began to rock her hips, grinding against me. She ducked her head out of our kiss, resting her forehead on my shoulder. I spread my fingers on her ass, pushing her harder against me and causing her to moan. "You're mine, Janet," I whispered. "You're the only one I want. Make love to me, Janet... you're so beautiful... I can't imagine life without you." A tear slipped free and she raised her head, looking down at me.

Her dark eyes were wide in the darkness, her forehead sheened with sweat. She was blinking rapidly, her breath coming in short, hollow gasps. I craned my neck up and kissed her face, tasting her sweat and sweeping my tongue over the salty residue. She moaned and arched her back; I slipped one hand between her legs. She moaned and I growled, pulling her against me. Her moan slowly reduced itself to a purr and I pressed her against me, peppering her throat with kisses. "I love you, Sam," she said breathlessly, her lips resting on my sternum, her face nestled between my breasts.

Simple words. Probably everyone in the world has spoken them at least once. They've become a kind of mantra. Love becomes 'luv.' It's almost a cliche sometimes. People love cake, kittens, musicians, actors and actresses they've never met. At some point in history, the most personal, endearing comment in the English language had been reduced to a platitude. But somehow... when I heard Janet say it to me in that moment, I knew without a doubt that I was with my soulmate.

"I love you, too, Janet."

I smiled as we fell asleep together, a sweaty mess of bodies curled together underneath a thick comforter. Five tiny words. So simple. So true. So easy.

End


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